' what you might call a hideal sort o' life this
five-and-twenty 'ear for a fiddle. Niver a chance of ketchin' cold or
gettin' squawky. Allays wrapped up nice and warm and dry. Theer ain't, I
dare venture to say it, a atom o' sap in the whole of her body. Her's as
dry as--"

"As I be," interposed Sennacherib. "It 'ud be hard for anything to be
drier. Let's have a drop o' beer, Fuller, and then we'll get to work."

Ruth ran into the house laughing, and the four musicians gathered
round the table. Ferdinand arose, strolled towards them, and took up a
position behind Sennacherib's chair. Ezra made an uncertain movement or
two, and finally, with grave resolve, crossed the grass-plot and took
the chair the young gentleman had vacated.

"I am informed, Miss Blythe," he said, with a slow, polite formality,
"as you have come once more to reside among us." She inclined her head,
but vouchsafed no other answer. The movement was prim to the verge
of comedy, but it was plain that she meant to be chilly with him. He
coughed behind his shaky white hand, and hesitated. "I do not know, Miss
Blythe," he began again, with a new resolve, "in what manner I chanced
to 'arn your grave displeasure. That is a thing I never knew." She
turned upon him with a swift and vivid scorn. "A thing I never knew," he
repeated. "If it is your desire to visit it upon me at this late hour,
I have borne it for so many 'ears that I can bear it still. But I should
like to ask, if I might be allowed to put the question, how it come to
pass. I have allays felt as there was a misunderstandin' i' the case.
It is a wise bidding in Holy Writ as says, 'Let not the sun go down upon
thy wrath.' And when the sun is the sun of life the thing is the more
important."

"My good sir," said Rachel, rising from her seat and asserting every
inch of her small stature, "I desire to hold no communication with you
now or henceforth."

"That should be enough for a man, Miss Blythe," said Ezra, mildly. "But
why? if I may make so bold."

"I thought," said the little old lady, more starched and prim than ever,
"I believed myself to have intimated that our conversation was at an
end."

"You was not wont to be cruel nor unjust in your earlier days," Ezra
answered. "But it shall be as you wish."

He left the seat, gave her a quaint old-fashioned bow, and returned to
his former standing-place. Ruth was back again by this time, and Rachel
crossed over to where she stood.

"Niece